My Path to Pride

I live with memories now,
Memories of a fragile youth,
Memories of two worlds:
The world in which I walked
And the world in which I lived,
I walked differently.
Unlike other boys, hale and hardy,
Drawn to macho things
Like sports and girls,
I, less robust, was drawn
To "sissy" things like art and singing
And dreamed dreams I dared not share,
Dreams others could not understand or approve,
Dreams that haunted me and made me feel ashamed,
Dreams about other boys
Whose taut, lithe bodies excited me.
Young and hungry for forbidden fruit,
I found pleasure in fantasies
And walked awkwardly among those I would deceive.
Now bent, cane in hand,
I walk unsteadily, head high,
Through a new day
In a new world.

PUBLISH YOUR OWN BOOK OF POETRY

Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”